ISTANBUL
As US President Donald Trump’s tariffs pressure markets worldwide, nine out of the world’s richest 10 men lost around $370 billion in their collective fortunes since the beginning of the year.
As Trump’s protectionism fuels global uncertainties, retaliatory steps from targeted countries are keeping perceived risk at a historic high.
Washington’s back-to-back tariff announcements muddied global economic forecasts, while expected retaliation further solidifies the fear that the trade wars will intensify.
World manufacturing hubs of China, Vietnam, and Taiwan have been hit with high tariffs.
These countries offer cheap labor and logistics but the tariff costs are expected to eclipse the many benefits that the three countries can provide.
Concerns that the trade wars will deepen and products like chips will be one of the main items to be targeted supported the downward trend in tech stocks, and tech billionaires have been hit with losses.
Following Washington’s tariffs on China, Beijing placed seven categories of medium and heavy rate metals on the export control list. These metals are used in a wide range of products, ranging from weapons systems to nuclear reactors, to even batteries, chips, superconductors, and more.
China produces nearly 90% of the 17 groups of rare earth elements. By restricting the US, Beijing reiterated its intention to leverage its global dominance.
Musk suffers biggest losses, while Warren Buffet remains sole billionaire to win
The fortunes of Elon Musk, the controversial owner of Tesla and X, and the biggest donor to Trump, lost $135 billion since the beginning of the year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Despite keeping the crown as the world’s richest man, Musk is the biggest loser of the period.
Tech mogul Larry Ellison, with a fortune of $147 billion, lost $44.9 billion, followed by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos with a loss of $42.6 billion, Larry Page with $34.7 billion, Sergey Brin with $32.5 billion, Bernard Arnault with $26.2 billion, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg with $24.5 billion, ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer with $20.4 billion, and Bill Gates with $9.45 billion.
In contrast, Warren Buffet, the world’s fourth-richest man, had added an additional $11.5 billion to his $154 billion fortune since the beginning of the year.
